Bristol

Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 454,200 in 2017. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, bordering Bath to the southeast and Gloucester to the northeast. In 1373, Bristol became a county of itself, and it became known as an important port city, serving as a starting place for exploration voyages to the Americas. In 1497, the Venetian explorer John Cabot led an expedition to North America from England, becoming the first European since the Vikings to land on the continent. From 1700 to 1807, over 2,000 Bristol slave ships carried 500,000 African slaves to the Americas. Bristol's docks would later become a cultural center as creative media, electronics, and aerospace engineering industries overtook mercantilism as the main industries in the city.